@@floridaarmyvet3613 Lithium batteries recycle well and often perform better after recycling than before recycling. There are already companies doing this - especially with electric car batteries.
A lot of the parts are high impact plastics. A petroleum product, mined. Like lithium, a more insidious earth element let loose into the environment. Just gets sadder. It’s really out of control like the weather.
Purposely designed to have a lifespan , that way they can make more money on long term maintenance contracts. In turn this means chopping up more balsa wood , processing and manufacturing thousands of tons of polyester resin and epoxy resin , plus thousands of tons of glass fibre cloth , plus thousands of tons of CO2 in transport . Every service interval . Kinda funny how these blades only have a rotational tip speed of a few miles an hour and a short lifespan yet they can build an aircraft wing to last many decades and survive airspeeds of several hundred miles an hour . Money money money !!!!
I researched this over 10 year's ago and there were a few scientists, engineers and environmentalist that raised the red flag on this problem. The mainstream response to the trash tsunami back then was "the people will figure out by then how to safely recycle them to be used again and not pollute our landfills with the toxic chemicals and heavy metals". Welp it seems no one has and it's started.
So, just to recap: renewable "clean" energy has costs that aren't spoken of: costs to manufacture (using fossil fuels); costs to dismantle and recycle (using fossil fuels); costs to transport both ways (using fossil fuels); final leftovers from burning (gasses and solids). Wouldn't it be instructive to see a chart of the total costs in money, fuel, pollution, and so forth? Seeing the whole story, here.
Correct. You have energy inputs for construction and demolition/disposal. With non-renewable sources, you have energy inputs for construction and demolition/disposal, and to fuel the thing to generate electricity all through its life. That third one dwarfs the other two.
What you need to remember is that that cost to manufacture, transport, and reuse (not dispose of, this story doesn't have it correct. It's a little behind. These technologies move too fast for these type of main media reporting that takes quite a while to produce) are increasingly being done using renewables. IE: solar and wind powering panel manufacturing factories, and electric trucks doing the hauling, etc.
Someday it may be possible to build green with green. Meaning as little as possible fossil fuels used during construction of renewables. Cannot 100% end fossils as things still require oil. Products made of plastics etc still come from fossil resources.
Yes, but as they stated we have a solution now thank God! Dementia go through the first second and third act in the matter of two minutes I’m impressed. They introduced the characters, they created problem, and then they present a solution to the problem.
@@BVonBuescher It is not a solution for all of it. Only a tiny fraction, plus it is still cheaper to dump in a landfill then send it to one of these very few plants that exist. wind generators have been around for OVER 40 years in America. only now they start..
Manufactures like these need to be 100% responsible for 100% reclamation and recycling. Yes, it costs however the manufacture needs to include 'end of life processing' into the overall design. If manufactures are made to be responsible they will engineer better recycling capabilities and processes into the overall design.
If the blades were put vertical and made into a fence or something like a retaining wall, would last almost forever I guess? If they are so unbreakable, why are they being thrown out??
That's a good idea! Repurposing is always a good idea and the fact no one is trying to find a solution and just dumping it into the landfill isn't very "green" of them
They aren't unbreakable and 100 foot tall fence that's 20 feet thick isn't particularly useful anywhere. They literally start to break down as soon as they start spinning.
More truth about the LIE of green energy. Not to mention we do not have a "climate crisis", which is again another LIE. Second only to the unscientific theory of evolution, man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated against humanity by earth-worshipping zealots who are stealing $trillions of your tax dollars to fund their false religion and lies.
Remember, every usable item you throw away is worth a full day of rations for our kids in the garbage mines. (i'd love to give credit, but I don't know who came up with this first)
Curious how much power is used on running that equipment needed to cut them up? Also, I found it funny that all the tractors moving all that around runs on diesel...
Curious how much energy and waste are going to be generated removing the two old coal fired plants in my area sitting next to the ocean, deteriorating for more than a decade after being decomissioned while the company owners stall on taking them down. I don't find it funny at all.
You better look onto how much coal ash those things generate every day. Way worse than shutting it down. Most of the coal plant can be melted down and recycled
Hope this makes abundantly clear there is no green or renewable energy. Just for clarification these companies that are trying recycle are very small compared to the amount of green energy waste. One cannot even count on one hand the number of companies doing this work.
1:49 The executive being interviewed means that the 3-4 year old panels have 90% of their rated capacity (more than that, certainly), not that they are 90% efficient.
@@charlesyoung2530 solar panel tech advances so quickly that they can fit more watts worth of panels in the same area. When that happens they replace the older low wattage panels with newer high wattage panels increasing the max power the array can produce without needing more land.
Try buying second hand panels for less than £60 in the uk, they still have a massive market second hand here so no need to landfill any of that at all! Usually it’s the councils putting restrictions on selling second hand!
Those councils are usually led by proponents of fossil fuels and utiities who obviously don't want home solar to succeed. Or at least hold them back as long as possible.
@@gregorymalchuk272 They're not junking them, they're selling them and getting some value back. Yet replacing them with newer panels with twice the power but cheaper than the originals. Their cost have come down that much that quickly. Remember, when you're not paying for fuel on a daily basis, it's all profit other than the maintenance. These are many folds cheaper to build than fossil fuel or nuclear plants. Now, if you were paying for a loan for building an expensive coal plant, let's say, that loan will take forever because your income is constantly being used up in fuel costs. Why do you think fossil fuel companies are so threatened by them, and spend so many billions trying to stop them?
@@gregorymalchuk272 because you cant just mixed old panels with new ones... You need to replace the whole batch... And because solar panels are cheap, they buy bigger producing panels to replace old ones.
@@jetfu400 If you can't mix and match solar panels how come I am managing to do so on my installation??? You just have to use your brain when paralle and series connecting them!
Honestly there are risks to the type of power you choose. All the way from the production process to waste disposal. We all need to be more informed and take this all more seriously.
Waste disposal is one of the biggest polluters of any energy extraction. This is where Nuclear is far in a way the best source. The entire waste of nuclear material for a person lifetime energy requirements in the use in 1/4 cup of mildly enriched uranium
There's a lot more material than that, and it stays dangerous a long time, so it's not insignificant. but I like the idea of deep boreholes onsite that buries the waste out of human reach
I don’t think most people realize how incredibly bad for the environment _making_ solar panels, batteries and wind turbines are. Not to mention their disposal once they need to be replaced.
As an economic developer who sits on a salt waste board, we find that many of the solar panels and wind turbines are aged out because of tax policy more than physical degradation. It was all last longer if we change tax policy.
And yet they require orders of magnitude less than fossil fuels. That says something of how inefficient fossil fuels are. By the way, most of a wind turbine can be recycled. Solar panels are a bit more complicated
The panels are often designed to last 20, 25+ years… There are people selling pallets of panels and testing often shows they have 80+ percent of their power production when replaced. They’re a great deal for consumers.
Yup often even see free from remodels....pity USA panels aren't up to par euro Theirs are warranted 50 yrs and due to weather in Europe their designed to work in overcast weather
Yeha ive been thinking of adding some solar to my cabin to cut some reliance on the 'iffy' power out there. Certainly gonna look into finding used panels for something like this...
Panels have a warranty for 20 to 25 years. These panels will still be producing 50% or more of its capacity in 50 years. The oldest panel ever made and still in service is still producing energy.
@@mirthenemrys there’s a great do-it-yourself guy on TH-cam..young and very technical who has a ton of how to for off-grid solar deployments. he also tests gear and has links to people selling used but working panels, and he tests everything he promotes to show you what you’ll actually get for your money.
I don't doubt that there is a brisk market in used solar panels. But I still don't understand how utility scale solar power projects can justify trashing their equipment when the loans haven't even been amortized.
"Unexpected SideEffect... " - Well, its been known for a long time that the blades and panels end up in landfill and seep metals into the environment. "green" is a con.
So why aren’t renewable generators required to have a waste disposal fee included with their electricity charges like nuclear power plants (which incidentally, can place all their waste in a football field assuming the waste is not recycled)?
I purchased four used Solar Panels and found that they are very efficient for my needs cheaper than buying new ones. Did the installation job myself and saved a ton of money! If you can wire a household plug you can wire solar it is that simple!
Two immediate problems. Most people cannot wire a plug. AND many people live in apartments and condos, so have NO control over where they get power. And to the first commenter, pennies weigh a ton, so he may have actually saved 2 tons. What a wasted comment...
Grinding up solar cells can create dust with elements like germanium, indium, arsenic, and antimony. The destruction of a few solar panels will probably not be an environmental or health problem. However, the shredding of thousands of panels could become one.
true, oversight and capture methods have to be in place for sure. Although it's not impossible. Tbh if tossing stuff wasn't so cheap they'd probably be doing it by now
Thousands of panels? Try TENS OF MILLIONS of panels. And the process costs about $40 per panel to recover $3 in valuables. That is not a misprint. So, who in their right mind will recycle these panels? And WHY is nuclear so easily discarded as a solution? Gee, that's a great question.
Yeah it's pretty disgusting to think people have cell phone mentality when it comes to solar panels so now this is a "problem" that we have for landfills. Oh no the panel only makes 80% of it's rated power output, lets throw it away and get a new one!
@@Mike__B People respond to financial incentives. The government gives out helicopter money to "upgrade". This is what happens when the true cost of something is not borne by the buyer in a free market. The government should focus on best ways to deal with externalities (taxing for the cost of eventual recycling panels, etc)
I feel like with "wind and solar" we for sure put the cart way before the horse. I got nothing against them but quit claiming it is so green when you quietly shove them into a hole in the ground. As for the used panels, I think for most people they would work just fine.
100% expected, and 99% better. fossil fuel plants generate waste continually in the form of NOx, CO2, and particulates. And worst of all, directly into the air! Coal is even worse, with the coal ash. But those are disposed continuously so there's no big news story. A garbage truck every day or year over year increase in lung canser and asthma doesn't make the news. But its more significant than a few pounds of waste per person
It will take few full solar and wind equipment lifetime cycles (50 years) for people to realise that nuclear takes way less labor, resources and land to produce same clean but on demand electricity for about the same cost. Its only expensive right now due to high cost of financing due to uncertainty of regulatory future.
@@mintheman7 You just have to elect conservatives to kick out anti-nuclear activists from the government. Get rid of those who place roadblocks for nuclear. Then it becomes easy to finance since ROI is more certain.
@@antronx7 Lol, because the new "conservatives" are known their support for for science and evidence based decision making. The fact you think it is a partisan issue just demonstrated my point.
Most of those solar panels have lots of life left in them, they are just about 75 to 85 percent of their original efficiency after 25 years. After that they level out and efficiency will not drop further.
Isn't it fantastic that we have apps like TH-cam that can be looked back 10 years from now and see and read all the negative and doubting comments regarding renewable energy and EVs? Wouldn't it have been great to have had it a century ago with all the naysayers against the automobile, or horseless carriages as they used to call them at the time? I know there exists archived newspaper articles such as the one from automobile pioneer Alexander Winton on the Saturday Evening Post titled "Get A Horse! America’s Skepticism Toward the First Automobiles," but what's going on now is priceless. These comments are all going to be saved and read all over again. To have exactly what the naysayers were saying by their own written words is absolutely priceless.
The sad thing is they charge way to much for those used panels when for a bit more you can buy new panels. I have seen new panels sell for less than 50 cents per watts shipped and I have seen used panels sell shipped for 30 cents per watt shipped. When you can ship me a whole pallet of panels for 10 cents or less per watt then I would consider spending money on panels. The fact that they just grind these up and trash them just goes to show that these companies are not in it to resell.
there are places in arizona selling used 250-watt panels for $50. the ones that get scrapped are the ones that are physically damaged, usually the glass is broken. the reason you see used panels selling for more is because in order to ship them, they have to be packaged. new panels are already packaged so you pay more to package the used ones.
@@marzsit9833 Yeah there is this town called Gilbert that almost always has solar panels like that. I have considered going down there via plane and then renting a box truck and making the 16 hour trip home. Box truck would be far better than drving my own truck which really can only support 2 pallets weight and size with my 9x8 flat bed. Box truck could fit quite a bit more. While I am down there I should be able to pick up ground mount rack to support 30kwh of solar along with the panels and a enough wire and some other odds and ends for 5k to 7500 including truck rental, gas, plane tickets and 2 or 3 nights hotel stay. I have read that there are companies when they take down large systems they sample test so many of them then pallet them up for broken and non broken then sell them at steep discounts because all they have to do is pallet them and not test or wash them. These can be had at major discounts and maybe 10% of them might be bad. Even if that is the case its still a lot better than one would think. There is no point in buying new if I do not have to and used will still last a long time. I intend to over panel my system per what ever the specs allow. This will make up for any degeration in the panels and allow for a much more energy for more parts of the day rather than a super high peak. For example if you system is rated for 20kwh and you can over panel at 40kwh you will bring in 20kwh for 12 hours rather than for 5 or 6 hours. This is why used panels can be super profitable if you sell back to the grid with a hybrid system, having enough energy to charge your battery bank, run your daily loads while selling back to the grid at the same time. While the peak load is nice it offers less. If you run a standard load of say a few kwh hourly being able to bring in a larger amount of solar early in the morning is better than not being able to do anything. I am running a solar fan test and I want to see what voltage the DC fan will take as I could then get a much larger panel ( higher voltage ) and have the fan kick on much earlier in the morning and later at night. This will allow for more use of said fan rather than peak hours. I am still wating on a much better hybrid inverter that offers so much more than they do right now. Something in the 10 to 20kwh range which is more than enough to keep up with any peak and demanding loads of any home. Up to 4 times the solar and up to 1k volts solar. Can wonk in any mode, grid only, battery only, solar only ( which means no need for grid or battery ) any combo of those 3. Another mode that I would like to see is battery back up. When the inverter has no battery yet has a battery that just keeps the system on and tells you the voltage and so on of everything time and date and things like that yet has no storage its self. So if the grid is down and you have no battery then the system will power on when there is enough sun and powers down when the sun goes down. Having that back up battery will allow the system to ideal all the time and keep that battery charged yet allowing you to check system and monitor it when the sun is not out. In the morning when it starts to get light out it can log the data as for time when the system is ready to fire up and when the system fires down. The more solar you have the more power you can have early in the morning and late at night. Meaning that if you wanted you could live battery less pretty easy.
U.S., solar panels are classified as hazardous waste. This severely limits the number of recyclers willing to accept solar panels. But they can be recycled and growth of recyclers is growing fast. Europe requires 85% collection and 80% recycling of the materials used in PV panels. But we are not able to do that since we are the USA and don't even show on most lists of best recycling nations.
If the MPP unit, the one stuck on the back of the panel, was blown by a static voltage hit then you can replace the 4 diodes in the unit and voila it is good again. Also check to see if panel has any burn spots etc that would disqualify it however. Many can be easily repaired this way DIY at great savings.
It’s funny how this is news when this is exactly what happens to everything we build or install. Eventually it’s broken or no longer useful and you have to deal with disposal.
@@floridaarmyvet3613 Exactly my point. We destroy our own environment with anything we build or do. The oil and gas industry is responsible for a great deal of our pollution, battery production will be no different. Just like always, we will end up killing many of our fellow humans in the name of progress, then just say “oh yeah our bad, sorry about that” 50 years later. It’s been the same story since the industrial revolution.
Seems like there would be LOTS of ways/things to use those blades for.....after all,they were designed to handle a lot of stress,so are very structurally sound. I imagine they must be "retired" after a certain number of years,not from testing to see if they are still good. lightweight,fairly indestructable,weatherproof,engineered for stability-what a waste to burn these up instead of using for numerous things.
They're made with a ton of fiberglass, which is damaged from UV rays and starts falling apart, or gets hit by birds, hailstones, etc. Compromised Fiberglass is a major health hazard, similar in a lot of ways to asbestos in that the fibers can enter your lungs and never leave, and the processing and resins may also be carcinogenic. Damaged "used" blades as playground equipment sounds like it's going to be a class action lawsuit in a few years. Using it as a fuel makes a lot of sense to me but I think large wind farms are a blight on society and our natural landscapes, and their negative effects on the environment are only exceeded by hydroelectric energy installations. I hope we move away from both and focus on solar and molten salt nuclear as clean energy sources.
There certainly are. But without a lucrative investment opportunity there's no motivation to find those ways. It's clear that the environment isn't a consideration; only profit and growth.
@@brassmule its not like old tires are chopped up on playgrounds floors and on soccer fields releasing toxic fumes in the summer. oh wait, its already done to kids health. this windmill fiber glass can be resealed and fix for other purposes. recycling is 90% a scam unless you reuse it 10-100x times.
If you're going to make money starting a company, I'm so glad these people started these! I hope they get rich trying to save us from out own short-sightedness.
When that guy said the 3 or 4 year old panels have 90% efficiency, he meant 90% of their original efficiency. Their original efficiency was likely around 20%, meaning that 20% of total solar energy is converted to electricity, which is typical for terrestrial solar panels. Top of the line spacecraft solar panels can reach about 35% efficiency, but are $400 for a cell the size of a credit card. 90% total efficiency is impossible, he basically meant 90% of the original 20%, AKA 18%.
One day driving down the road, my cousin asked what was those white things the trucks were hauling. I knew it was a wind blade and it was long and huge. I told my cousin that it was a whale bone. They have to harvest whales for meat because there are too many humans and no one want to eat vegetables. The look in his eyes was precious. I just created a vegan. He stopped eating meat. Its been 10 years now, pretty sure he knows what they are now. I just don't have the heart.
They are always very misleading with these percentages. Solar is about 3% of US energy production. Globally its much less. Coal is still the primary source. Coal consumption, which is the number you should look at, is still increasing year over year. All we are doing is making ourselves poorer, and creating more toxic waste streams. We haven't solved anything but homelessness is now a massive problem, the US is $30 trillion in debt, and the US is helping to start more wars. So the usual.
It sounds like We the People have found a new job to create for the masses: recycling. Its more than likely a systemic issue that needs addressed from a global or national level but this is exciting to finally debate this issue. Congratulations humans!
@@ivar-the-terrible prices I have seen are 50 cents per watt new and used 30 cents per watt. If they would offer them for 10 cents per watt then more people would buy used. Really many of these solar farms are stupid from replacing the panel so early. They really should just buy more land to put new panels on them. The fact that they are paid for and the rest is just pure profit besides cleaning the panels every so often.
In order to reduce wind and solar products it takes an enormous amount of carbon fuels to manufacture and transport. This does not include the fuels use to install them.
Again we hurry towards these new ways of fueling our cities and electricity but we don't think of the ramifications of when it's time to tear them apart and the longevity of them that only is a few years. Still nothing beats fossil fuels as of right now and won't for some time to come
Quite interesting how laughable the CBS talking heads seem to see the report. Hard for me to understand why no one asked why they had 3 to 4 year old panels in the garbage when they were designed to last 25 to 30 years.
They did say why. As solar panels improve their efficiency the old ones are being removed. You have to remember, these solars panels are relatively new, so practically every year theyre improving and making newer and better models. Then the old ones are being replaced.
@@JayForsure But why would you rip out perfectly good panels to replace them with marginally more efficient panels? The usual rule of thumb is that a panel loses 1/2% of efficiency per year - but some are doing better than that in practice. A four year old panel is probably still 98% efficient (or more). Given the cost of buying and installing the new panels versus the benefits of any marginal improvement in energy generated there has to be another reason - poorly thought out tax breaks, possibly?
@@malcolmrose3361 it comes down to space efficiency and profits.. Newer 450+ watt panels take the same square footage as a 3 year old 330 watt panel. They already received the tax incentives on first install. Now receive another tax incentive for the upgrade plus increased profits from higher outputs and resale of aged panels to wholesalers.
That's what I don't understand. Why are utility scale companies junking panels after 4 years, well before the loans are amortized, even before the panels are fully depreciated? Something doesn't smell right to me.
I've got a feeling there's plenty of CO2 coming from them when burned. I'd bet there's plenty of heavy metals and CO2 when the solar panels are melted down, too.
There are absolutely ZERO forms of energy production that doesn not create waste or harms the environment. The only goals should first of all be to reduce the overall demand on why we need so much energy, second is efficiency in energy use, and third is more renewable and cleaner forms of energy that has the potential for being recycled back into products. Nothing is perfect, but humans such high demand for energy is purely pathetic
so when will the lawsuits begin for all the people working in the blade recycling plant. all that fiberglass dust going into the air and the employees having to breath it in. then there are all the people that live around this plant that also have to breath in the particles from the fiberglass dust. then that dust falls to the ground and contaminates it and all the water runoff going into the rivers polluting them. then what are the health issues with burning fiberglass as a fuel source. i would bet coal is cleaner, cheaper and less of a health hazard than the pollutants from the burning fiberglass. this clip shows how little all these so-called environmentalists really care about the environment, it is all about the money for them.
Another Extremely important concern that is Burgeoning and Often Urgent! It has been reported that their are toxic emissions when manufacturing solar panels and toxic emissions when throwing solar panels in the dump. Recycling should get whatever funding needed while they strive to be self supportive. There should be an effort to work towards anything manufactured needs to be capable of being recycled without too much difficulty. How much more can be done to make use of passive solar? Thank you for your helpful and informative videos!
1:49: Wow! 90% efficiency? I'll take those, where can I buy them! That's more than 4 times the best panels in the market can do! 3:16: To this! Never knew they made them out of paper. Interesting. The blades are not supposed to be indestructible. They're designed to handle wind loads, not sawblades.
They are not windmills thay are wind turbines. No it is the components that get changed our fir newer technology. Blame your power company. When high winds are happening the power company turns down the amount winged turbines produce because thay can't charge you more for power.
Turn oil into fiberglass, then grind up the fiberglass to burn it to make cement. And we call that "green". The burned oil is still being put into the air.
Here something I see every day now, hybrids that need new batteries. I live in a mountainous area with many hills. I see it on the big hills all the time. Traffic will be moving at speed limit or above until we reach a hill and our speed slowly reduces until we are under the speed limit. On one four lane highway, I can change lanes and pass almost always older hybrid in need of a new battery.
where have you been CBS. Winds blades have been buried for over 20 years. Will it take 20 years for you to realize EV batteries are going straight to landfills as well. Yes, they are zero recyclable...
@@xperyskop2475 I wish all that was true. Cobalt is the only component thats widely recycled. EV batteries have been buried for years lacking much recycling market As for sodium batteries, the industry is young. We've a long way to go
I'm sure, the go to clean energy will also have a positive impact on energy production in development countries. Imagine the solar panels will be send to countries in Africa & Asia, so the locals can get more electric power for their daily living.
I believe it would be very well used as coastal protection, just sticking them in the ground and then filling them with sand with a dredge, it would save a lot of money in transporting stones.
Solar panels last much longer than 25-30 years. That's just not a factual number. That number is based off of warranty information. It is not indicative of how long a solar panel keeps working and delivering significant power.
@@Simon-dm8zv thats not true .The power that the intermitting generators (wind and solar) produce is not reduced in the conventional plants. The grid is complex.
All the spent fuel ever created by all nuclear power plants in the world, including ships and submarines from all countries that have them, would fit inside ONE 100yd football field.
And last 20,000 years just because we can move past the old fission reactor design from over half a century ago. Replace the uranium with Thorium and the water with Molten Salt and people won’t freak out once they learn that it can’t make radioactive ghost towns like the Cold War Reactor does.
What this shows is there is a secondary market in the early stages of development for green waste. When batteries for EVs can are no longer good for vehicles, they can still be used for home backup giving them a second lease on life and keeping them out of landfills
To capture low energy density power like wind and solar you need lots of panels and turbines. These wear out frequently and need replacement. Research how sustainable it is to have to extract the resources to continually replace these items that are needed on massive scales. There is a limit to how efficient they can be so the power generation improvements have a thermodynamic floor. Solar and wind will always need millions of units that will need frequent replacement and drive extraction of finite raw materials. No free lunch.
Green? Look at all the diesel it took just to move these from place to place to place. Those bulldozers aren't green that cover them. Also to manufacture the raw materials and transport to begin with
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“There was no plan to handle the waste.” The biggest understatement ever.
They just let the FF industry write their scripts at this point.
Just wait for all these batteries. It will destroy the entire environment
@@floridaarmyvet3613 they can recycle them, they just choose not to because it eats a little into profit
@@floridaarmyvet3613 Lithium batteries recycle well and often perform better after recycling than before recycling. There are already companies doing this - especially with electric car batteries.
A lot of the parts are high impact plastics. A petroleum product, mined. Like lithium, a more insidious earth element let loose into the environment. Just gets sadder. It’s really out of control like the weather.
So, if windblades are indestructible, then why do they have to be replaced?
They leading edge get destroyed fairly quickly and loses all efficiency, must be all the eagles they chop through.
@@manoo422 See how tough they are, against a Canada goose.
Purposely designed to have a lifespan , that way they can make more money on long term maintenance contracts. In turn this means chopping up more balsa wood , processing and manufacturing thousands of tons of polyester resin and epoxy resin , plus thousands of tons of glass fibre cloth , plus thousands of tons of CO2 in transport . Every service interval .
Kinda funny how these blades only have a rotational tip speed of a few miles an hour and a short lifespan yet they can build an aircraft wing to last many decades and survive airspeeds of several hundred miles an hour .
Money money money !!!!
@@newagetemplar6100my guy... No that is not the reason
I dunno, I've seen plenty of videos of the blades destructing...
What’s crazy is they say this is a young industry yet everything is worn out!
Right?! I guess we just need to keep using fossil fuels. Drill baby drill! Florida is almost under water, we're so close!!!
The recycling industry is young. An industry only 2-3 decades old is young, very young.
I wonder why everyone is buying property on the beach because it’s not going under water.
No the solar wind is young and falling apart at the seams
@@jcf536farrier5 Fema and insurance companies take care of the hurricane aftermath.
Good plan eh?
"An unexpected side effect." Here's your sign! Love seeing all your fossil fuel powered heavy equipment making all your efforts possible.
Curious how this effects the EROI
I researched this over 10 year's ago and there were a few scientists, engineers and environmentalist that raised the red flag on this problem. The mainstream response to the trash tsunami back then was "the people will figure out by then how to safely recycle them to be used again and not pollute our landfills with the toxic chemicals and heavy metals".
Welp it seems no one has and it's started.
Plant the blades vertically on the border.
That makes too much sense. Plus how would "they" get get their cut?
I love this idea!
@@MyUtubeScott oh plenty would get their cut
No attribution?
Brilliant!
Anyone who worked in the solar business knew they weren’t recycling these in the right way
So, just to recap: renewable "clean" energy has costs that aren't spoken of: costs to manufacture (using fossil fuels); costs to dismantle and recycle (using fossil fuels); costs to transport both ways (using fossil fuels); final leftovers from burning (gasses and solids). Wouldn't it be instructive to see a chart of the total costs in money, fuel, pollution, and so forth? Seeing the whole story, here.
Correct. You have energy inputs for construction and demolition/disposal.
With non-renewable sources, you have energy inputs for construction and demolition/disposal, and to fuel the thing to generate electricity all through its life. That third one dwarfs the other two.
You should try googling that, rather than assuming you’ve discovered some big secret.
What you need to remember is that that cost to manufacture, transport, and reuse (not dispose of, this story doesn't have it correct. It's a little behind. These technologies move too fast for these type of main media reporting that takes quite a while to produce) are increasingly being done using renewables. IE: solar and wind powering panel manufacturing factories, and electric trucks doing the hauling, etc.
Me thinks "clean energy" is a net loss.
Someday it may be possible to build green with green. Meaning as little as possible fossil fuels used during construction of renewables. Cannot 100% end fossils as things still require oil. Products made of plastics etc still come from fossil resources.
_If only someone could've seen this coming?!_ 🙄
Yes, but as they stated we have a solution now thank God!
Dementia go through the first second and third act in the matter of two minutes I’m impressed. They introduced the characters, they created problem, and then they present a solution to the problem.
@@BVonBuescher It is not a solution for all of it. Only a tiny fraction, plus it is still cheaper to dump in a landfill then send it to one of these very few plants that exist. wind generators have been around for OVER 40 years in America. only now they start..
Manufactures like these need to be 100% responsible for 100% reclamation and recycling. Yes, it costs however the manufacture needs to include 'end of life processing' into the overall design. If manufactures are made to be responsible they will engineer better recycling capabilities and processes into the overall design.
Which should apply to all industries
💯
Sustainability at its best. We've been coned and taken for mugs.
Some of us saw thru their b s years ago. If it' sounds to good to be true, it's more than likely a line of bull_ _ _t
If the blades were put vertical and made into a fence or something like a retaining wall, would last almost forever I guess? If they are so unbreakable, why are they being thrown out??
That's a good idea! Repurposing is always a good idea and the fact no one is trying to find a solution and just dumping it into the landfill isn't very "green" of them
They aren't unbreakable and 100 foot tall fence that's 20 feet thick isn't particularly useful anywhere. They literally start to break down as soon as they start spinning.
Sounds like a good idea until you think about it for 5 seconds.
They're made like wings so they'll likely fly off in a strong wind.
Lol. That's how we get the right on board. Build the wall out of it.
Once we run out of resources we’ll start mining landfills. 😂
Maybe we already are? For example maybe that's the real cause of some large mineral deposits
Yep...but some places (like Bend Oregon) turned their big landfill into a methane plant. Might as well use all the off gassing.
More truth about the LIE of green energy. Not to mention we do not have a "climate crisis", which is again another LIE.
Second only to the unscientific theory of evolution, man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated against humanity by earth-worshipping zealots who are stealing $trillions of your tax dollars to fund their false religion and lies.
Remember, every usable item you throw away is worth a full day of rations for our kids in the garbage mines.
(i'd love to give credit, but I don't know who came up with this first)
Already happening. Look at your third world countries.
Curious how much power is used on running that equipment needed to cut them up? Also, I found it funny that all the tractors moving all that around runs on diesel...
Curious how much energy and waste are going to be generated removing the two old coal fired plants in my area sitting next to the ocean, deteriorating for more than a decade after being decomissioned while the company owners stall on taking them down. I don't find it funny at all.
You better look onto how much coal ash those things generate every day. Way worse than shutting it down. Most of the coal plant can be melted down and recycled
energy needed to dispose of them is very small compared to the lifetime output of the turbines
Hope this makes abundantly clear there is no green or renewable energy. Just for clarification these companies that are trying recycle are very small compared to the amount of green energy waste. One cannot even count on one hand the number of companies doing this work.
And most all of it subsidized by our tax dollars.
Atomic mb
1:49 The executive being interviewed means that the 3-4 year old panels have 90% of their rated capacity (more than that, certainly), not that they are 90% efficient.
Those panels have probably 98-99% capacity left. Modern panels degrade .5-1% a year.
Yes, It's 90% from 20 to 23% maximum on a solar panel.
Why did the people who owned the solar panels get rid of them after 3 yrs if they were so great?
@@charlesyoung2530 most are from industrial applications not individuals
Such as when they upgrade a solar farm or remove for an example an oil well
@@charlesyoung2530 solar panel tech advances so quickly that they can fit more watts worth of panels in the same area. When that happens they replace the older low wattage panels with newer high wattage panels increasing the max power the array can produce without needing more land.
amazing how little we understand about landfill in each individual area.. how under reported and crucial it is to the waste system..
They become ski hills in Michigan
Try buying second hand panels for less than £60 in the uk, they still have a massive market second hand here so no need to landfill any of that at all! Usually it’s the councils putting restrictions on selling second hand!
Those councils are usually led by proponents of fossil fuels and utiities who obviously don't want home solar to succeed. Or at least hold them back as long as possible.
Ok, but why are the power companies junking them well before the loans are amortized? Something doesn't smell right.
@@gregorymalchuk272 They're not junking them, they're selling them and getting some value back. Yet replacing them with newer panels with twice the power but cheaper than the originals. Their cost have come down that much that quickly. Remember, when you're not paying for fuel on a daily basis, it's all profit other than the maintenance. These are many folds cheaper to build than fossil fuel or nuclear plants. Now, if you were paying for a loan for building an expensive coal plant, let's say, that loan will take forever because your income is constantly being used up in fuel costs. Why do you think fossil fuel companies are so threatened by them, and spend so many billions trying to stop them?
@@gregorymalchuk272 because you cant just mixed old panels with new ones... You need to replace the whole batch... And because solar panels are cheap, they buy bigger producing panels to replace old ones.
@@jetfu400 If you can't mix and match solar panels how come I am managing to do so on my installation???
You just have to use your brain when paralle and series connecting them!
Amazing how quickly it’s worn out and they still keep using oil!
how much oil compared to the coal or gas that would be needed to generate the same amount of energy?? it's peanuts
FINALLY some honest reporting on the downsides of "clean" energy.
Yes and not from Fox News.
I'm glad they are now talking about this. It's been an issue for several years. Now we need to look at the problems of all renewables.
And I love how CBS is treating this like "breaking news!"
Honestly there are risks to the type of power you choose. All the way from the production process to waste disposal. We all need to be more informed and take this all more seriously.
Waste disposal is one of the biggest polluters of any energy extraction. This is where Nuclear is far in a way the best source. The entire waste of nuclear material for a person lifetime energy requirements in the use in 1/4 cup of mildly enriched uranium
well...ya dont sound confused to me.
Civilization is a heat engine, no matter which way its powered!
There's a lot more material than that, and it stays dangerous a long time, so it's not insignificant. but I like the idea of deep boreholes onsite that buries the waste out of human reach
It all should have been figured out over 50 years ago lol.
I don’t think most people realize how incredibly bad for the environment _making_ solar panels, batteries and wind turbines are. Not to mention their disposal once they need to be replaced.
As an economic developer who sits on a salt waste board, we find that many of the solar panels and wind turbines are aged out because of tax policy more than physical degradation. It was all last longer if we change tax policy.
exactly
Stop your lying.
@@charlesyoung2530 Who is lying? Please elaborate!
It takes a ton of resources to make both. So much for renewable resources
And yet they require orders of magnitude less than fossil fuels. That says something of how inefficient fossil fuels are. By the way, most of a wind turbine can be recycled. Solar panels are a bit more complicated
This problem as not unforeseen. It was just plain ignored.
The panels are often designed to last 20, 25+ years… There are people selling pallets of panels and testing often shows they have 80+ percent of their power production when replaced. They’re a great deal for consumers.
Yup often even see free from remodels....pity USA panels aren't up to par euro Theirs are warranted 50 yrs and due to weather in Europe their designed to work in overcast weather
Yeha ive been thinking of adding some solar to my cabin to cut some reliance on the 'iffy' power out there. Certainly gonna look into finding used panels for something like this...
Panels have a warranty for 20 to 25 years. These panels will still be producing 50% or more of its capacity in 50 years. The oldest panel ever made and still in service is still producing energy.
@@mirthenemrys there’s a great do-it-yourself guy on TH-cam..young and very technical who has a ton of how to for off-grid solar deployments. he also tests gear and has links to people selling used but working panels, and he tests everything he promotes to show you what you’ll actually get for your money.
I don't doubt that there is a brisk market in used solar panels. But I still don't understand how utility scale solar power projects can justify trashing their equipment when the loans haven't even been amortized.
"Unexpected SideEffect... " - Well, its been known for a long time that the blades and panels end up in landfill and seep metals into the environment. "green" is a con.
So why aren’t renewable generators required to have a waste disposal fee included with their electricity charges like nuclear power plants (which incidentally, can place all their waste in a football field assuming the waste is not recycled)?
Because then the companies would not want to do solar. They'll get fined too much. Money makes the world go round.
I purchased four used Solar Panels and found that they are very efficient for my needs cheaper than buying new ones. Did the installation job myself and saved a ton of money!
If you can wire a household plug you can wire solar it is that simple!
No such thing as saving “a ton of money”. You are saying ‘a 2000 of money’. ?????
Two immediate problems. Most people cannot wire a plug. AND many people live in apartments and condos, so have NO control over where they get power. And to the first commenter, pennies weigh a ton, so he may have actually saved 2 tons. What a wasted comment...
Recycling cost should be part of the purchasing cost
In the country I live in (Finland) there are no landfills anymore. The owner of the waste is required to recycle all material.
I wish I lived in Finland. My life would be much better in many ways than in the US. They actually take care of their citizens.
Bullsh!t!
Explain how they recycle the waste from Finland's nuclear power stations please!
@@andrewallen9993they are stored in the power plant.
@@wedmunds As I said Everything in Finland recycled? Bulls!t, thanks for agreeing with me :)
whatever makes you sleep at night...
Grinding up solar cells can create dust with elements like germanium, indium, arsenic, and antimony. The destruction of a few solar panels will probably not be an environmental or health problem. However, the shredding of thousands of panels could become one.
true, oversight and capture methods have to be in place for sure. Although it's not impossible. Tbh if tossing stuff wasn't so cheap they'd probably be doing it by now
Large particulate can be captured easier than co2 or other gases.
Thousands of panels? Try TENS OF MILLIONS of panels. And the process costs about $40 per panel to recover $3 in valuables. That is not a misprint. So, who in their right mind will recycle these panels? And WHY is nuclear so easily discarded as a solution? Gee, that's a great question.
No do fossil fuel
I live in Arizona. I know bunches of people who have used solar panels. I have most of my power generated by used panels. They work great.
Yeah it's pretty disgusting to think people have cell phone mentality when it comes to solar panels so now this is a "problem" that we have for landfills. Oh no the panel only makes 80% of it's rated power output, lets throw it away and get a new one!
I want to go to these landfills & collect solar panels & car batteries.
@@Mike__B People respond to financial incentives. The government gives out helicopter money to "upgrade". This is what happens when the true cost of something is not borne by the buyer in a free market. The government should focus on best ways to deal with externalities (taxing for the cost of eventual recycling panels, etc)
I feel like with "wind and solar" we for sure put the cart way before the horse. I got nothing against them but quit claiming it is so green when you quietly shove them into a hole in the ground. As for the used panels, I think for most people they would work just fine.
Unexpected side effect? this was 100% expected, you just ignored it.
100% expected, and 99% better. fossil fuel plants generate waste continually in the form of NOx, CO2, and particulates. And worst of all, directly into the air! Coal is even worse, with the coal ash. But those are disposed continuously so there's no big news story. A garbage truck every day or year over year increase in lung canser and asthma doesn't make the news. But its more significant than a few pounds of waste per person
Meanwhile, Nuclear: "Yall just forget about me, or what?"
It will take few full solar and wind equipment lifetime cycles (50 years) for people to realise that nuclear takes way less labor, resources and land to produce same clean but on demand electricity for about the same cost. Its only expensive right now due to high cost of financing due to uncertainty of regulatory future.
Chiến tranh ukraine. Khi nga chiếm 2 nhà máy tất cả mọi người nhấn nút hoảng loạn
@@antronx7 But those are the hardest things to fix, regulations and financial viability. Ever try to get a politician to do a right thing?
@@mintheman7 You just have to elect conservatives to kick out anti-nuclear activists from the government. Get rid of those who place roadblocks for nuclear. Then it becomes easy to finance since ROI is more certain.
@@antronx7 Lol, because the new "conservatives" are known their support for for science and evidence based decision making. The fact you think it is a partisan issue just demonstrated my point.
To be fair coal doesn’t get recycled either.
Um, yes, it does, actually. Coal ash is recycled. It's used in concrete and wallboard materials.
Could be argued that even the co2 can be recycled as trees need co2 and sunlight for photosynthesis.
Most of those solar panels have lots of life left in them, they are just about 75 to 85 percent of their original efficiency after 25 years. After that they level out and efficiency will not drop further.
I did not know that, now I am even happier that I saved money and purchased used panels.
These blades do break during use, and now they're grinding them up and burning them as fuel!??? WTF Gretta
Isn't it fantastic that we have apps like TH-cam that can be looked back 10 years from now and see and read all the negative and doubting comments regarding renewable energy and EVs?
Wouldn't it have been great to have had it a century ago with all the naysayers against the automobile, or horseless carriages as they used to call them at the time? I know there exists archived newspaper articles such as the one from automobile pioneer Alexander Winton on the Saturday Evening Post titled "Get A Horse! America’s Skepticism Toward the First Automobiles," but what's going on now is priceless. These comments are all going to be saved and read all over again. To have exactly what the naysayers were saying by their own written words is absolutely priceless.
The sad thing is they charge way to much for those used panels when for a bit more you can buy new panels. I have seen new panels sell for less than 50 cents per watts shipped and I have seen used panels sell shipped for 30 cents per watt shipped.
When you can ship me a whole pallet of panels for 10 cents or less per watt then I would consider spending money on panels.
The fact that they just grind these up and trash them just goes to show that these companies are not in it to resell.
I know of used panels who have been given away for almost nothing to build a PV plant in a rural area.
there are places in arizona selling used 250-watt panels for $50. the ones that get scrapped are the ones that are physically damaged, usually the glass is broken. the reason you see used panels selling for more is because in order to ship them, they have to be packaged. new panels are already packaged so you pay more to package the used ones.
@@marzsit9833 Yeah there is this town called Gilbert that almost always has solar panels like that. I have considered going down there via plane and then renting a box truck and making the 16 hour trip home. Box truck would be far better than drving my own truck which really can only support 2 pallets weight and size with my 9x8 flat bed. Box truck could fit quite a bit more. While I am down there I should be able to pick up ground mount rack to support 30kwh of solar along with the panels and a enough wire and some other odds and ends for 5k to 7500 including truck rental, gas, plane tickets and 2 or 3 nights hotel stay.
I have read that there are companies when they take down large systems they sample test so many of them then pallet them up for broken and non broken then sell them at steep discounts because all they have to do is pallet them and not test or wash them. These can be had at major discounts and maybe 10% of them might be bad. Even if that is the case its still a lot better than one would think.
There is no point in buying new if I do not have to and used will still last a long time.
I intend to over panel my system per what ever the specs allow. This will make up for any degeration in the panels and allow for a much more energy for more parts of the day rather than a super high peak.
For example if you system is rated for 20kwh and you can over panel at 40kwh you will bring in 20kwh for 12 hours rather than for 5 or 6 hours. This is why used panels can be super profitable if you sell back to the grid with a hybrid system, having enough energy to charge your battery bank, run your daily loads while selling back to the grid at the same time. While the peak load is nice it offers less. If you run a standard load of say a few kwh hourly being able to bring in a larger amount of solar early in the morning is better than not being able to do anything.
I am running a solar fan test and I want to see what voltage the DC fan will take as I could then get a much larger panel ( higher voltage ) and have the fan kick on much earlier in the morning and later at night. This will allow for more use of said fan rather than peak hours.
I am still wating on a much better hybrid inverter that offers so much more than they do right now. Something in the 10 to 20kwh range which is more than enough to keep up with any peak and demanding loads of any home. Up to 4 times the solar and up to 1k volts solar. Can wonk in any mode, grid only, battery only, solar only ( which means no need for grid or battery ) any combo of those 3. Another mode that I would like to see is battery back up. When the inverter has no battery yet has a battery that just keeps the system on and tells you the voltage and so on of everything time and date and things like that yet has no storage its self. So if the grid is down and you have no battery then the system will power on when there is enough sun and powers down when the sun goes down. Having that back up battery will allow the system to ideal all the time and keep that battery charged yet allowing you to check system and monitor it when the sun is not out. In the morning when it starts to get light out it can log the data as for time when the system is ready to fire up and when the system fires down. The more solar you have the more power you can have early in the morning and late at night. Meaning that if you wanted you could live battery less pretty easy.
I install used solar panels on RVs.
I also put the electric vehicle batteries into RVs as well.
Everything can have a second life
Most used solar panels have nothing wrong with them in my experience.
U.S., solar panels are classified as hazardous waste. This severely limits the number of recyclers willing to accept solar panels. But they can be recycled and growth of recyclers is growing fast. Europe requires 85% collection and 80% recycling of the materials used in PV panels. But we are not able to do that since we are the USA and don't even show on most lists of best recycling nations.
All with government grants, take away the subsidies and the grift is over.
Recycling is a fraud.
We also don’t show on most lists of cutting edge cancer research.
If the MPP unit, the one stuck on the back of the panel, was blown by a static voltage hit then you can replace the 4 diodes in the unit and voila it is good again. Also check to see if panel has any burn spots etc that would disqualify it however. Many can be easily repaired this way DIY at great savings.
problem solved!
I could've told them this 10 years ago. "Green" energy is anything but green...
It’s funny how this is news when this is exactly what happens to everything we build or install. Eventually it’s broken or no longer useful and you have to deal with disposal.
Wait for all.these batteries. You think China isn't destroying the ocean making these? They don't care.
@@floridaarmyvet3613 Exactly my point. We destroy our own environment with anything we build or do. The oil and gas industry is responsible for a great deal of our pollution, battery production will be no different. Just like always, we will end up killing many of our fellow humans in the name of progress, then just say “oh yeah our bad, sorry about that” 50 years later. It’s been the same story since the industrial revolution.
I want some of those solar panels for my RY and house.
It is the batteries that costs the big bucks! Unless you just want them fir daytime use,
Seems like there would be LOTS of ways/things to use those blades for.....after all,they were designed to handle a lot of stress,so are very structurally sound. I imagine they must be "retired" after a certain number of years,not from testing to see if they are still good. lightweight,fairly indestructable,weatherproof,engineered for stability-what a waste to burn these up instead of using for numerous things.
Maybe they could teach you English.
another couch potato lays it our for all.
They're made with a ton of fiberglass, which is damaged from UV rays and starts falling apart, or gets hit by birds, hailstones, etc. Compromised Fiberglass is a major health hazard, similar in a lot of ways to asbestos in that the fibers can enter your lungs and never leave, and the processing and resins may also be carcinogenic. Damaged "used" blades as playground equipment sounds like it's going to be a class action lawsuit in a few years.
Using it as a fuel makes a lot of sense to me but I think large wind farms are a blight on society and our natural landscapes, and their negative effects on the environment are only exceeded by hydroelectric energy installations. I hope we move away from both and focus on solar and molten salt nuclear as clean energy sources.
There certainly are. But without a lucrative investment opportunity there's no motivation to find those ways. It's clear that the environment isn't a consideration; only profit and growth.
@@brassmule its not like old tires are chopped up on playgrounds floors and on soccer fields releasing toxic fumes in the summer. oh wait, its already done to kids health. this windmill fiber glass can be resealed and fix for other purposes. recycling is 90% a scam unless you reuse it 10-100x times.
Notice all the diesel powered equipment used to recycle the green energy waste.
If you can't recycle them.. just grind in down and mix them with construction cement and use .
If you're going to make money starting a company, I'm so glad these people started these! I hope they get rich trying to save us from out own short-sightedness.
Well, at least we don't have to deal with super stable and reliable nuclear. This is clearly the better option.
When that guy said the 3 or 4 year old panels have 90% efficiency, he meant 90% of their original efficiency. Their original efficiency was likely around 20%, meaning that 20% of total solar energy is converted to electricity, which is typical for terrestrial solar panels. Top of the line spacecraft solar panels can reach about 35% efficiency, but are $400 for a cell the size of a credit card. 90% total efficiency is impossible, he basically meant 90% of the original 20%, AKA 18%.
One day driving down the road, my cousin asked what was those white things the trucks were hauling. I knew it was a wind blade and it was long and huge. I told my cousin that it was a whale bone. They have to harvest whales for meat because there are too many humans and no one want to eat vegetables. The look in his eyes was precious. I just created a vegan. He stopped eating meat. Its been 10 years now, pretty sure he knows what they are now. I just don't have the heart.
They are always very misleading with these percentages. Solar is about 3% of US energy production. Globally its much less. Coal is still the primary source. Coal consumption, which is the number you should look at, is still increasing year over year. All we are doing is making ourselves poorer, and creating more toxic waste streams.
We haven't solved anything but homelessness is now a massive problem, the US is $30 trillion in debt, and the US is helping to start more wars. So the usual.
So funny the green energy blades are burned in the end. What kind of chemicals come out when burned?
Ask the same question about coal and natural gas. And the scale
It sounds like We the People have found a new job to create for the masses: recycling. Its more than likely a systemic issue that needs addressed from a global or national level but this is exciting to finally debate this issue. Congratulations humans!
Most things can't really be recycled. We were lied to about plastic being recycled, 80% of the types of plastic we reuse are not recyclable.
can I get the 3-4 year old solar panels for my place? how much cheaper are they than new?
They absolutely should be offering them to the general public.
Yes. Not sure of the best source, but google "used solar panels for sale". Most seem to have good deals for bulk sales.
SanTan Solar sells used panels. I got mine from there, absolutely love them and got them for cheap
@@ivar-the-terrible prices I have seen are 50 cents per watt new and used 30 cents per watt. If they would offer them for 10 cents per watt then more people would buy used. Really many of these solar farms are stupid from replacing the panel so early. They really should just buy more land to put new panels on them. The fact that they are paid for and the rest is just pure profit besides cleaning the panels every so often.
Santan Solar sells used panels but still a bit too expensive compared to new.
It's all about politics, not protecting the environment.
In order to reduce wind and solar products it takes an enormous amount of carbon fuels to manufacture and transport. This does not include the fuels use to install them.
Again we hurry towards these new ways of fueling our cities and electricity but we don't think of the ramifications of when it's time to tear them apart and the longevity of them that only is a few years. Still nothing beats fossil fuels as of right now and won't for some time to come
Quite interesting how laughable the CBS talking heads seem to see the report. Hard for me to understand why no one asked why they had 3 to 4 year old panels in the garbage when they were designed to last 25 to 30 years.
They did say why. As solar panels improve their efficiency the old ones are being removed. You have to remember, these solars panels are relatively new, so practically every year theyre improving and making newer and better models. Then the old ones are being replaced.
@@JayForsure But why would you rip out perfectly good panels to replace them with marginally more efficient panels? The usual rule of thumb is that a panel loses 1/2% of efficiency per year - but some are doing better than that in practice. A four year old panel is probably still 98% efficient (or more). Given the cost of buying and installing the new panels versus the benefits of any marginal improvement in energy generated there has to be another reason - poorly thought out tax breaks, possibly?
@@malcolmrose3361 it comes down to space efficiency and profits.. Newer 450+ watt panels take the same square footage as a 3 year old 330 watt panel. They already received the tax incentives on first install. Now receive another tax incentive for the upgrade plus increased profits from higher outputs and resale of aged panels to wholesalers.
Government subsidies, AKA socialism. Making the tax payer pay for what would be a failed plan.
That's what I don't understand. Why are utility scale companies junking panels after 4 years, well before the loans are amortized, even before the panels are fully depreciated? Something doesn't smell right to me.
What chemical compounds are released when the blade dust burned?
I've got a feeling there's plenty of CO2 coming from them when burned. I'd bet there's plenty of heavy metals and CO2 when the solar panels are melted down, too.
All that resin and fiberglass, burns clean I'm sure...
Burning plastic is pretty horrible.
@@headspaceandtiming2114 Not to mention all the toxic waste from the chemicals used to make them, but hey that's tomorrow's problem right.
There are absolutely ZERO forms of energy production that doesn not create waste or harms the environment. The only goals should first of all be to reduce the overall demand on why we need so much energy, second is efficiency in energy use, and third is more renewable and cleaner forms of energy that has the potential for being recycled back into products.
Nothing is perfect, but humans such high demand for energy is purely pathetic
so when will the lawsuits begin for all the people working in the blade recycling plant. all that fiberglass dust going into the air and the employees having to breath it in. then there are all the people that live around this plant that also have to breath in the particles from the fiberglass dust. then that dust falls to the ground and contaminates it and all the water runoff going into the rivers polluting them. then what are the health issues with burning fiberglass as a fuel source. i would bet coal is cleaner, cheaper and less of a health hazard than the pollutants from the burning fiberglass. this clip shows how little all these so-called environmentalists really care about the environment, it is all about the money for them.
Renewables aren’t “renewable.”
Correct. Just massive amounts of money for China and politicians
"unexpected side effect of massive expansion in renewable energy" xD
Another Extremely important concern that is Burgeoning and Often Urgent!
It has been reported that their are toxic emissions when manufacturing solar panels and toxic emissions when throwing solar panels in the dump.
Recycling should get whatever funding needed while they strive to be self supportive.
There should be an effort to work towards anything manufactured needs to be capable of being recycled without too much difficulty.
How much more can be done to make use of passive solar?
Thank you for your helpful and informative videos!
Apparently this is not the right answer to renewable energy
I guarantee the people behind this have big backyards. Great for a final resting place for all this crap.
1:49: Wow! 90% efficiency? I'll take those, where can I buy them! That's more than 4 times the best panels in the market can do!
3:16: To this! Never knew they made them out of paper. Interesting.
The blades are not supposed to be indestructible. They're designed to handle wind loads, not sawblades.
"90" I caught that too. At best he means 90% efficiency of the new ones on the market.
i think 90% efficiency is a estimation of what they are capable of, compared to new panels. Solar is definitely not 90%
@@gothboschincarnate3931 @Edward Cheung
Maybe he means 10% degradation. For P-type panels from 4 years ago that seems acceptable.
So green, so brave. I take oil and coal every day of the week.
So it’s not the windmills or the panels that are the problem it’s how we choose to get rid of them
They are not windmills thay are wind turbines. No it is the components that get changed our fir newer technology. Blame your power company. When high winds are happening the power company turns down the amount winged turbines produce because thay can't charge you more for power.
@@jmswillow5969 so they regulate the speed of the turbines so as not to produce “excess” because they can’t charge for it?
it was always the lying republicans who were the problem.
Oil can destroy whatever it wants and we accept it. Meanwhile we'll make wind and solar apologize for the entire concept of entropy.
This was not unexpected unless you had your head in the sand. It was a known problem 8 years ago.
Turn oil into fiberglass, then grind up the fiberglass to burn it to make cement. And we call that "green". The burned oil is still being put into the air.
You can't burn fiberglass genius. They grind it up and use as replace for fly ash in cement. The video showed it clearly. Do you need hearing aids?
Here something I see every day now, hybrids that need new batteries. I live in a mountainous area with many hills. I see it on the big hills all the time. Traffic will be moving at speed limit or above until we reach a hill and our speed slowly reduces until we are under the speed limit. On one four lane highway, I can change lanes and pass almost always older hybrid in need of a new battery.
Toyota can restore your toyota hybrid battery or change it and recycle the old one.
where have you been CBS. Winds blades have been buried for over 20 years. Will it take 20 years for you to realize EV batteries are going straight to landfills as well. Yes, they are zero recyclable...
you have zero knowledge on battery recycling.
Batteries won't go to landfills. They are too valuable to be disposed of. And iron sodium batteries are here and they are cheap compared to lithium
@@Simon-dm8zv educate me
@@xperyskop2475 I wish all that was true. Cobalt is the only component thats widely recycled. EV batteries have been buried for years lacking much recycling market As for sodium batteries, the industry is young. We've a long way to go
@@rrseitz1306 Please name a source for EV battery burrying.
We didn't learn a think from the plastics industry. In which is still a huge problem but now the focus has been diverted to this.
oh wow....i didn't think the government would want this known, great to see this being shared.
It's ok. Just dig up more minerals to make more solar panels. Save the planet by buying sh!t. 😂 We are the dumbest monkey out of the whole bunch.
I'm sure, the go to clean energy will also have a positive impact on energy production in development countries. Imagine the solar panels will be send to countries in Africa & Asia, so the locals can get more electric power for their daily living.
Other countries find ways to recycle for the greater good, yet we in the US get more buried waste. Yay America!
I believe it would be very well used as coastal protection, just sticking them in the ground and then filling them with sand with a dredge, it would save a lot of money in transporting stones.
Solar panels last much longer than 25-30 years. That's just not a factual number. That number is based off of warranty information. It is not indicative of how long a solar panel keeps working and delivering significant power.
When you burn the shredded blades you get CO2! Its the same as burning fossile fuels but with a 15 to 25 year delay
And in those 15-25 years they’ve prevented millions of tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. How do you not get this?
The emissions saved by the wind turbine are much more.
Burning fiberglass and resin. That can't be good.
@@Simon-dm8zv thats not true .The power that the intermitting generators (wind and solar) produce is not reduced in the conventional plants. The grid is complex.
according to the WSJ using the shredded blades instead of coal to run the cement plant is 27 percent cleaner
All the spent fuel ever created by all nuclear power plants in the world, including ships and submarines from all countries that have them, would fit inside ONE 100yd football field.
Shh, you can't spout facts to the green team. They lack the ability to understand why their choices are so much worse for the planet.
And last 20,000 years just because we can move past the old fission reactor design from over half a century ago. Replace the uranium with Thorium and the water with Molten Salt and people won’t freak out once they learn that it can’t make radioactive ghost towns like the Cold War Reactor does.
People warned of this…. Just like people keep warning of the EV battery waste issue that’s coming…
What this shows is there is a secondary market in the early stages of development for green waste. When batteries for EVs can are no longer good for vehicles, they can still be used for home backup giving them a second lease on life and keeping them out of landfills
So someone has finally seen the light? Solar and wind are the biggest money pit, and we are paying for it all. The price of going “green”.
So great that so much of these renewables are recycled. The title made me think that this stuff was actually going to landfills.
To capture low energy density power like wind and solar you need lots of panels and turbines. These wear out frequently and need replacement.
Research how sustainable it is to have to extract the resources to continually replace these items that are needed on massive scales.
There is a limit to how efficient they can be so the power generation improvements have a thermodynamic floor. Solar and wind will always need millions of units that will need frequent replacement and drive extraction of finite raw materials.
No free lunch.
It’s all a scam , bad ideas for a bad ending
Green? Look at all the diesel it took just to move these from place to place to place. Those bulldozers aren't green that cover them. Also to manufacture the raw materials and transport to begin with
This is the problem with embodied carbon - and why local sourcing is important
Wow, an unbiased, non political news cast that represents the challenges in an honest way. I wish all of todays news was like this.
Driven thru the Vast Texas Panhandle several times, seen two blade landfills. About the size of a footbal field with old blades neatly stacked.
What gases are given off when you burn fiberglass resin in kiln?
You’ll never know -dr evil probably
Good Lord CBS that was sad,,, but if I was 9 years old this would be an impressive, logical, and informative report...
You lost me a "scientists say" what scientist!? Where?! When?!
I remember seeing a guy on tv who re-used car tires. He used them in asphalt and in shingles. Wonder if he’s still around or still in use.